


What Happened In Midcopse

by SamValentine



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Cockatrices, Gen, Lindenvale, Midcopse, Peasants, Velen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 17:16:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10701522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamValentine/pseuds/SamValentine
Summary: Iohan’s story had been right for about half of it. Geralt of Rivia had indeed been trekking through Velen, leaving death in his wake, and despair, well—that depended on who you asked. He had indeed travelled to Midcopse in pursuit of one of his many Witcher contracts . . . Geralt had spoken to the butcher, as he had been the one to nail the contract on the notice board.So far so good.





	What Happened In Midcopse

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers (in passing) for the sidequest 'Ghosts of the Past'. Other than that, there's nothing in here touching on the in-game quests.

 

At dusk, Geralt rode into Lindenvale at a calm trot. When he arrived at the inn, he softly pulled on Roach’s reins and leaned back. “Prrrrr, whoa, girl.”

He dismounted and led Roach to the inn’s barn, where he tossed the stable boy a crown. “Give my horse water and hay, please, but leave her saddled. I will be back soon.”

Before turning back outside, he gave Roach a friendly pat on her neck.

He made his way towards the blacksmith, and as he does so, passes the shed which Letho had blown up. With a wistful glance, he looked at the hovel where they had last spoken. If everything had gone right, Letho would be on his way to Kaer Morhen right now.

If he had stayed out, like Letho told him to—no. No use dwelling on the past, and no way to know what the future holds. Unless he was there to help shape that future.

He approached the blacksmith, who did not look up, but kept hammering away at something that was probably to be something resembling a scythe.

“Hello,” said Geralt.

“Hm,” was the blacksmith’s response, still banging away at his anvil.

“I need you to repair something for me.”

At last, the man raised his glance, and laid aside his tools. “Fine, let’s see it then.”

Geralt told him what needed to happen—his gloves and steel sword were in need of repair. After the blacksmith had inspected them, he spat on the ground and started rubbing his hands. “That’ll be 34 crowns, and it should be done by tomorrow morning.”

Oh. It was to be like that then. One more moron trying to wheedle his customers out of their last crowns. Geralt raised his eyes skywards. He did not feel like wasting his time on this asshole.

He sidestepped the anvil and drew up closely to the man, looming over him, looking at him with a dark gaze. “It will be 20 crowns and it will be done right now.”

Well, that did it. The man’s resolve broke quicker than his neck would have done, had he given Geralt cause to do so.

He started sobbing, and Geralt stepped back.

“But sir, I’ve got six mouths to feed, and—”

“Well, shoulda known better than to procreate.”

“Whasthat?” the blacksmith asked, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

“That you shouldn’t have… oh never mind, forget it,” Geralt trailed off, with a sigh. He gave the man 10 crowns and promised him the rest _after_ he had done his work.

He left the man to his work, giving him a few threatening looks as he walked away, and made his way towards the inn. He had found a crumpled note in his belongings, as he had finally rearranged his saddle bags: it turned out to be a Lindenvale Witcher contract, signed ‘Jambert’, and he hoped to find someone in the inn who could tell him where to find this Jambert.

Thus, Geralt made his way back to the inn. He wondered whether to get a Temerian rye and try to blend in, but heard too many whispers of ‘freak’ and ‘mutant’ to even try to bother. He sighed, almost wistfully, trying to remember the day he stopped caring about insults. That day had been a good day.

He simply approached the innkeep and asked for a man known by the name of Jambert, and the woman continued rubbing a cup which became only dirtier due to the cloth she was trying to wipe it with. Geralt cleared his throat—still no response. He asked again, while becoming aware of two presences behind him.

Suddenly, with a bang, she put the cup down. “Dontcha think we ain’t not heard what happened in Midcopse?” She spat on the floor.

Two men tried creeping up behind Geralt, but he had long heard, sensed, smelled and seen them approaching.

Geralt raised his hands, and turned toward the two men, the innkeep to his left.

“Okay,” he said in as soothing a tone as he could manage at that moment, “I’m not here looking for a fight.”

Whether that was the complete truth, or Geralt did not want to spoil his silver sword with human blood (as his steel one was currently at the blacksmith’s), the two men would never find out. However, Geralt slowly lowered his hands again, and made his way towards the inn’s door.

He shot the men, and the innkeep, a last glance, convinced they would not try to shoot him in the back as he left, and, groping behind him, found the door handle.

As soon as he stood outside again, he cursed.

Fuck Velen, and its blockheaded peasants along with it.

Geralt looked at the sky and, in vain, tried to remember the day he stopped caring about insults, and misunderstandings.

  
  
_This is what the innkeep and her customers thought had happened at Midcopse:_

Iohan had come ridden into Lindenvale one afternoon. He was hailed by many inhabitants, as he was well-known as one of their few connections with the world outside of the wooden fences of their village.

“Hullo, Iohan,” Thea had said, wiping her hands on her apron as she emerged from the inn. “Got news?”

After tethering his horse, a scrawny brown mare, to a post, Iohan came up to his wife, brushed past her and headed for the inn, where he poured himself a big tankard of Kaedweni stout.

Everyone in the village who was not presently occupied flocked to the inn to hear from Iohan. Thea sighed, wiped her hands once again, followed them in, and set to pouring endless more cups of wine and beer.

Iohan had taken his usual seat, on the dais near the fire. Respectfully, the villagers kept their silence.

He took a big gulp of his beer, set down his tankard, and finally started talking.

“I s’pose many of you lot have heard of the accursed,” he spat out the word, “ _mutant_ known as the White Wolf, the Butcher of Blaviken: the Witcher Geralt of Rivia. He’s been trekking through Velen and leaving death and despair in his wake. Some of you may’ve laid yer own eyes on him—he has been to Lindenvale, with another member of his revolting kin, and destroyed Durham’s shed.”

Some villagers nodded gravely, Durham himself included.

“That crime, however unforgivable, was a single drop o’ water compared to what he has done in Midcopse,” Iohan continued.

Say about the man what you liked, but he could tell a story. Accordingly, the village gasped collectively.

“What’s he done, Iohan?” came a voice from the back.

“Quiet, you fool,” hissed someone.

“Says he came for one of his, one of his _Witcher contracts_ ,” sneered Iohan. “Then, he stole one of the butcher’s children, with the intent to make her a mutant as well. But they found out in time, but when they tried to stop him, he made the child disappear.” His voice had lowered to a whisper, and everyone leaned forward to try and hear him.

“They says he _ate_ her.”

Some people clasped their hands in front of their mouths, and many more looked disgusted, and most of them who was present made a sign to ward off evil. And _everyone_ vowed silently to shun the white-haired freak, and never to help or assist him when he would visit Lindenvale again.

A notable exception to this ‘everyone’, was the blacksmith. A customer is a customer, and you see, he’s got six mouths to feed.

 

_This is what really happened in Midcopse:_

Iohan’s story had been right for about half of it. Geralt of Rivia had indeed been trekking through Velen, leaving death in his wake, and despair, well—that depended on who you asked. He had indeed travelled to Midcopse in pursuit of one of his many Witcher contracts, and unfortunately Iohan had also been right about him joining up with another Witcher, Letho, who had destroyed the shed. Geralt had spoken to the butcher, as he had been the one to nail the contract on the notice board.

So far so good.

As Geralt was speaking to the butcher, and painstakingly trying to get some more details on the monster from him, he felt a small hand pulling on his sleeve.

He looked down on a red-haired girl—he estimated she was about eight years old.

“Marta!” hissed her father. “Leave the man alone, go back outside.”

But Marta did not move. She gazed up at Geralt, enraptured.

Geralt looked at the butcher, shrugged, and knelt in front of the child.

“What is it, girl,” he asked, not unfriendly.

“Are you a Witcher?” she asked.

“Marta,” the butcher tried once more, despair trickling into his voice. Undoubtedly he was afraid of somehow triggering the Witcher’s bad mood which would inevitably lead to a show of his infamous blademanship skills.

None of that, however.

Geralt nodded at Marta.

“Is it true you have a silver sword?”

Geralt’s mouth twitched into a smile. He liked the forwardness of children—most of them, anyway. No beating around the bush, no bullshit. Yet. Until the world fucked them up.

“Yup. I use it to kill monsters.”

If Geralt saw the butcher melting into a puddle of anguish, he pointedly took no notice.

The kid’s eyes glazed over with the ability of instant daydreaming only children possess. “I would like to be a Witcher one day,” she murmured, then she turned towards Geralt. “Could you teach me how you kill monsters?”

“Marta!” cried her father.

“Wha’,” she said, innocently. “I want to protect you from monsters, papa!”

Geralt sat back on his heel and looked down, a smile playing on his face. “Sure, I could teach you some,” he said, after a while. He gave the butcher a reassuring nod.

“Come outside.”

They went outside.

“Okay, lesson number one,” said Geralt. “Find me two sticks. Straight, no forks, and about yea long.” He indicated about two feet with his hands, then crossed his arms.

“Aww,” she pouted, “I’m not a lackey!”

“Everyone has to start at the bottom. I started there too.”

Her big eyes looked up at him, mouth slightly open. “Really?”

“Really. And now, quickly. Two sticks. Sturdy!” He called after her, while she ran out of the yard, and toward a tree in the middle of the village. “No twigs, and… Ah. Never mind.”

He noticed her father was ogling him, and Geralt turned towards him. “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt her, just… thought it’d be nice to entertain her a bit.”

The butcher nodded. He still did not look like he was convinced, but his eyes had stopped bulging out of his head.

Geralt unstrapped the belts that ran across his back and chest and set his swords against a barrel. Then he peeled off his gambeson—and shit, he needed a wash—and rolled his shoulders.

“So, how about you tell me a bit more about the contract you put up, since we—” started Geralt, but his head whipped around when he heard a cry.

A split second later he realised it was a victory cry.

The girl came sprinting back with two sticks, presenting them to Geralt with a silly, proud smile on her face.

“Hmm-mm,” he said, accepting them, testing their flexibility and sturdiness. “That will do. All right,” he raised his voice a bit.

“Hold it like a sword.”

Her smile faltered. “We’re gonna practice wi’ _sticks_? I do that every day!”

“Not like this,” Geralt replied. “I’m going to teach you how to fight like a true warrior.”

He did not, of course. Regular humans—meaning, not Witchers—need years of personal coaching and daily training to become _true_ warriors, and from as early an age as possible. The girl was young, granted, but Geralt had not the time (or wish, even) to train her. In fact, he had about an hour.

She would not become a true warrior, but she would enjoy herself, he vouched.

And a more true thought had never been thought, for indeed, Marta enjoyed that hour immensely, and Geralt was impressed with her strength and will power, and resistance to pain. Geralt wasn’t the cause of that; he did not think he would cut a good figure with her father if he had. She had tripped and fallen rather badly, chafing her knees and cutting open her hands—“mind your feet!” he had said, over and over, but alas. She could not remember everything. Still, she did a fairly good job.

The butcher had kept an eye on the proceedings, and Geralt specifically. And who could blame him: after all, it wasn’t every day a Witcher came to visit your village, fill your contract, and teach your child some swordsmanship.

Geralt saw she was panting, and sweaty, and her eyes were clouding over a bit. He stuck his own stick into the ground, and knelt before her. “Right. One last, and very important trick.”

Her mouth opened to protest, but he held up a hand. “Okay, two things. First—never exert yourself beyond your limits, except in cases of great need. _Now_ is not an emergency, all right? Second, and last; if you ever find yourself in battle with anyone—”

Here the butcher made a sound of despair, as he thought this lesson had gone rather far already. Geralt ignored him.

“—then you must remember to have the sun at your back. Do you know why?”

Marta cocked her head, bit her lip, and thought hard for a second before she brightened up. “So my enemy is blinded by the sun?”

Geralt nodded, his eyes crinkling from a smile he hid in his beard. That reminded him—he should get a shave soon. Too hot around these parts, in the bloody stinkin’ swamps, to walk around with a beard this long. There wasn’t a peasant around he’d trust with a razor at his throat though, and there was no way he’d get across the Pontar to Oxenfurt or Novigrad without one of those stupid letters of conduct they required.

“Attagirl,” he said. “Now,” and he rose again. “Time for me to talk to your father. Off you go, and don’t you forget what I taught you.”

Marta beamed and ran inside the house, no doubt to tell her siblings about all the exciting stuff she had been doing that afternoon.

“She’s my youngest ‘un,” said the butcher, with some tender affection. “Her brothers will be green wit’ jealousy.”

“Hmm,” said Geralt, who had been losing interest the moment the girl disappeared. She could become a soldier, alright, he thought. With more training, of course. And in due time.

More training, which she’d never receive. And due time, which she’d only get if she survived the rest of her childhood in this cursed swamp, with Nilfgaardians around every corner and bandits in the bushes, or just the wolves, or the ghouls and rotfiends on the battlefields—

Geralt felt himself growing sullen, so he dropped his head briefly and then said, “so, about that contract…”

“Right,” said the butcher, after a second more of dreamy staring snapping back to attention, not unlikely due to Geralt’s piercing stare. Sometimes Geralt forgot the effect his eyes had on people who were unacquainted with Witchers.

After some shaky explanation, Geralt had three bits of information: east of the village, and it flew, and seemed ‘about yea high, size of an ‘orse perhaps? No, bigger, bigger,’ which was not much to go on. It could be a griffin, a manticore, a cockatrice… With a sigh, Geralt asked the butcher who else might’ve sighted the monster.

Then they settled on a fee, and Geralt asked around the village a bit, and did not find out much more, except that it had a tail (likely), and thus was most probably a manticore or a cockatrice. Cockatrices were quite common around these parts, and manticores were barely around anymore, anyway.

Meanwhile, night had fallen, and Geralt did not feel like going out in darkness searching ‘somewhere two mile east’ for ‘a beast two horses tall with a tail, but not a horse’s tail’ and which could (likely) swoop down on him.

He rejected the offer to take dinner at the butcher’s, although his purse would not have protested the free meal, but because he didn’t feel like being assaulted with questions by Marta or her brothers, who had all ran outside to gawk at him (or more specifically, his swords) while he stood talking with the butcher.

Thus Geralt retreated to the inn, but before eating, he brewed the potions and oils he thought useful for tomorrow’s fight, as well as replenishing his stock of ingredients which were necessary to brew the Thunderbolt potion. Then he bought himself a hearty meal, played a few rounds of Gwent, and waited until dawn came, then applied the oil to his sword. As soon as the sun peeked above the horizon, he saddled Roach and set out, eastwards.

He had not ridden a mile yet when he heard the shrieking of what sounded like, indeed, a cockatrice. He leaned forward to check if Roach’s blinders were attached to the bridle securely, and spurred the mare on to a full gallop across the fields.

Soon the cockatrice came into sight, and through the adrenaline Geralt smiled. What a sight, soaring through the sky. Then he realised he’d have to rid the world of another pest, another monster, no matter how majestic it might look like. Never be fooled by outer beauty.

If experience had taught him anything, that was the high and low of it.

The cockatrice disappeared out of sight and Geralt rode on, having the feeling he recognised the surroundings and that a lake might be nearby. He made his way towards it, and from a distance, saw the cockatrice satisfying its thirst.

He dismounted, trusting Roach to hang around as she always did. He felt around his belt to ensure his potions were still safely attached there. He snuck through the brushes, edging around the cockatrice, until he was only a few yards away.

Suddenly the wind changed direction and the cockatrice looked up from the water, looking around—it must’ve caught the Witcher’s scent. Its poisonous tail curled around itself.

Geralt wasted no time and unhooked the Thunderbolt vial from his belt, then chucked its contents back. He felt the potion—the poison—course through his veins, feeding more oxygen to his already tense muscles. He carefully unsheathed his silver sword and then, after one more second, he charged at the cockatrice.

The surprise attack worked fairly well, and he managed to cut the cockatrice in its flank deeply. Then the beast turned around and tore at Geralt with its sharp claws, and it caught the belts with which he strapped his two swords to his back. They snapped, and his other sword fell to the ground. Geralt jumped back, and cast Quen: next time the beast touched him, it would feel it. He saw it limped—it tried to put as little weight as possible on its right front leg.

Geralt tried to flank it, and slashed down at the cockatrice, but had not accounted for the speed of the beast’s tail, which wrapped itself around his ankle and pulled him down. Because of the Quen sign, however, it released him almost immediately afterwards, but nonetheless Geralt went down hard, and all the air was pushed out of his lungs, but he made sure to keep his fist clenched around the hilt of his sword tightly. Blinded by dust and muck, he slashed in front of himself, and by stupid luck managed to stick his sword into the cockatrice’s weak leg.

It screeched, and Geralt rolled over and sprang up, and as soon as he had wiped the sand out of his eyes he cast Aard, hitting the charging cockatrice frontally. It deviated from its course, missing Geralt by an inch. He slashed his sword down as it ran past him, getting splattered with blood, but grinning ferally when he felt the blade hit home.

Now it was the cockatrice’s turn to fall, and fall it did, crashing down, its weight making it slide over the sand and half into the water. Geralt did not waste any time and jumped, blade high.

It was a perfect curve, hitting the cockatrice in the neck, and severing its head halfway through. It convulsed, almost throwing Geralt off of its shoulder, but he managed to rebalance and finish the job.

As soon as the head lay completely severed, Geralt stepped back, breathing heavily. Before he did anything else, he walked back to where the fight had started and picked up his other sword, which he strapped to Roach’s saddle. He then brought Roach over to where the cockatrice was slain, and with ropes and complicated knots attached the head to the saddle as well.

He cut off other valuable parts of the cockatrice as well, such as the tip of its tail (poisonous), its claws (could be ground to make a powder) and several of its vital organs.

The last thing he did before riding back to the village was cleaning his sword and his knife. He would have washed the blood off his face and armour, but the cockatrice had fallen into the lake and its blood had already polluted it.

Luckily, Midcopse lay upstream and he stopped a bit further up the stream to clean himself. Then he mounted Roach and rode back to the village.

Instead of welcoming him with open arms and a nice, heavy purse, however, the butcher paled when he saw Geralt approach, and then grew red, and livid.

“Where is she?!” he yelled.

Geralt, who was about to dismount, decided he sat atop his horse very well for the moment, and raised an eyebrow. He had a feeling whom it concerned, but decided to play dumb.

“Who?”

“Marta! My young un’! Where have you taken her?”

“What are you talking about, man,” said Geralt, growing impatient. “I haven’t seen her since I left your house yesterday afternoon.”

“She ran after you this morning, not a minute after you left town. Am I supposed to believe you haven’t seen her?”

Geralt had to bite his tongue to refrain from saying, ‘yes, please do’, but he just sighed and said, “tell me the story from the beginning.”

“No time, no time! I—”

The butcher looked at a point behind Geralt, where he had already heard a group approaching. He turned around in his saddle to see a few men of the town with crossbows slung over their shoulder, holding the chains of a few dogs.

“Did you find her?” the butcher asked, desperately.

The men shook their head.

One of them, whom Geralt recognised from the inn the night before, pointed at the Witcher and said, “sure it wasn’t ‘im?”

Before anyone could say anything more, they found themselves strangely calm, and able to listen to the Witcher’s reasonable proposition.

Geralt struggled to keep up the Axii sign to influence so many minds, as well as speak, but he managed.

“Okay, what we’re gonna do is the following. We’re gonna continue the search, but I’ll lead. You,” he pointed at the butcher, “will come with me, as you know her best, and might spot something particular to her that we might miss. The rest will follow. Let’s go.”

He left Roach behind, and led the party of men—six in total, the butcher himself included—back into the fields, the same route he had taken that morning in search of the monster.

Geralt blinked, and looked around with his inner eye, the Witcher’s vision, as it was affectionately called in Kaer Morhen. Not that this view was limited to Witchers only—Geralt had known some sorcerers and sorceresses who had managed something quite similar.

He knelt, and followed the path of the small footsteps, not bothering to explain what he saw to the rest of the men. A sense of dread filled him, and he looked forward, ahead, and saw that the signs of a fall in the sand. He knelt again, and looked carefully. Yes—she had fallen here, caught herself on her hands—here were the prints—and had managed to get up again, running in a different direction.

Then he saw the blood.

He closed his eyes momentarily.

Then he got up and bade the men stay behind. He needn’t cast the Axii sign this time, as the expression on his face spoke volumes.

There Marta lay, innards spilt over the dusty road.

Geralt didn’t need to look around long—a simple wolf attack.

“Damn,” he muttered.

Meanwhile the butcher had crept forward, and looked over Geralt’s shoulder to see his youngest child, his only daughter, in a horrid scene.

The man howled, and his companions drew up as well.

One of them, the same who had pointed at Geralt before, pointed at him again with a trembling finger. “It was him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Geralt snapped. “These are obviously wounds made by a wolf’s fangs. I don’t have any.”

“Yer the White Wolf, aren’t ya,” said another man, with a drooping mustache.

“You’re a mutant, what says yer can’t transform into a wolf?” the first added.

Geralt raised his hands. “I can’t, and even if I could, why the hell should I lead you to this place?”

“So you can finish the job!” one of the men, who hadn’t spoken up previously, but had stood trembling, broke into a sprint back towards the village.

Two more men followed.

The three remaining men, including the butcher, started edging backwards, carefully.

“For fuck’s sake,” said Geralt, who had lost his patience—but that was a mistake, as the men mistook his tone of voice for an assaulting, dangerous one, and followed their companions back towards the village, leaving the dead girl lying there.

Geralt tilted his head back, towards the sky, and sighed deeply. “Fuck,” he muttered again. “What a fucking mess.”

He knelt beside the girl and closed her unseeing eyes. Then he pulled off his right glove, licked his thumb and daubed her eyelids with signs to ward off spirits, to protect her, until her father came back to collect the body for burial.

There really was nothing else he could do for her now.

He muttered a few more words, and hid in a nearby forest until nightfall, and collected Roach from the inn’s barn.

Then he rode to Lindenvale.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to write something which could be like a sidequest or a Witcher's contract from the game, & also I wanted to try writing Geralt. This is quite old, from the summer of 2015, and I polished it a little bit before uploading it.
> 
> Comments, criticism? I'd love it if you'd leave a comment! :) Thanks for reading.


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